THE NORDIC ARCHITECTURE SYMPOSIUM – AALTO & UTZON

The E-mail promoted
a symposium at the Abedian School of Architecture on the subject of
the Nordic influence in Australian architecture: The Nordic Architecture Symposium - Connections in the Southern Hemisphere. It was scheduled for
Friday 9 October 2015. The event sounded intriguing. More information
came in the form of a flyer that was illustrated with an Aalto vase
cleverly re-interpreted as a map of Australia, without Tasmania. The
brochure outlined the programme for the day, the speakers and the
subjects.+ It sounded like something one might choose to go to, so an
interest in attending was registered. It was to be a full-day event:
the occasion was written into the diary. One instinctively knew from
the list of speakers that the talks would concentrate on Aalto and
Utzon.

The copse of pine trees

'Cable mania'?

After some showers
the previous evening, the Friday morning was cloudy, but the sun was
breaking through. On approaching the School of Architecture at Bond
University, one noticed that things were very quiet. There was a
sudden feeling of panic with the thought that the location of the
venue should have been checked and confirmed. It had just been
assumed that the symposium would be held at the school. Perhaps a
more specialised university lecture room with a larger foyer and more
convenient catering spaces was to be used for this event? The
facilities at the school were rather limited, rudimentary, and the
students working in the open studios might not want to be disturbed
by a large number of visitors and other goings-on. The glass door was
pulled opened to allow one to peer into the familiar entry foyer.
Folk were standing at a table set up for registration, at another for
coffee, or just generally milling around. This was the place: things
might become inconvenient if the numbers grew to any size. After
coffee and a chat, some attendees started to move into the seats that
had been set out in the presentation area. The chairs had been
arranged to fill the space, with some extra ones spread out over
yellow tactile markers along the top of a long set of steps, almost
as a dress circle to one side. These looked a little precarious.

After settling in,
it was immediately obvious that there was a problem. The bright light
of the tall glass walls either side of the small screen had glare
problems that gave the screen a fuzzy hazed hue. One kept on checking
to see if this fog might be caused by one's 'Transitions' glasses,
but it wasn't. It is not the first time problems have been noted in
this open forum area: see -
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/exploring-definition-edge-condition-of.html
Through these glass walls that reflected one another's sheen, one
could see distant things more clearly than anything on the screen: a
small stand of pine trees through one opening; other campus buildings
and a piece of sculpture through the other. Passing vehicles and
people frequently crossed these vistas, distracting the eye and one's
attention from the speaker. It was a poor place for such an event.
One just had to try to ignore the situation and make the best of
things. Occasionally hands were being lifted to shade the eyes from
the bright light so that images on the screen might be seen. Were
folk just too polite to raise this as a concern? No one said
anything.

View through to the open studio areas

Australian rock**

Nordic rock

Nordic colour

The day started a
little late with a welcome and an introduction. Adrian Carter (AC)
began to talk about the Nordic connections with Australia. His first
image showed an outline of a map of Australia drawn over the Nordic
region. One hoped that it was to scale! Australia was large, bigger
than the collection of Nordic countries – Norway, Sweden; Finland
and Denmark. AC proceeded to set the scene for the idea of the
symposium, of there being parallels between the Nordic regions and
Australia, by showing images that were effectively presented as
matching pairs, one Nordic, the other Australian. It seemed a big
jump to say that Uluru was similar to another rocky bump in the
Nordic landscape, and that the Nordic forest of fir trees was like a
eucalypt forest, even one at cooler Mount Kosciusko. Visually, on the
screen one could match forms that corresponded in a broad manner, as
in a children's book, but there is a great difference in these places
as a lived experience, in their meaning and feeling. It was a surreal
start. Was this a hoax?

One was concerned
that this analysis was promoting a superficial overview of the
subject. AC noted that Australia might not have had the Olympic Games
if it had not had the Nordic-designed opera house. Why? No graphic?
He commented that Utzon's Opera House had been based on boat design,
boats that the Nordic region Vikings had used upside-down as roofs
for their buildings: see -
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/skaw-boat-house.html
He finally pointed out that Denmark had an Australian queen, showing
an image of the young couple in front of the familiar roof tiling
pattern of the opera house. The points being made seemed shallow, superficial.
They appeared to ignore a range of rich and subtle matters that one
might have assumed was the core of the subject of this symposium,
things to do with the senses, perception, feeling, meaning and
emotion, rather than merely matching pairs of shapes and ad hoc
possibilities.

Sydney Opera House tiling detail

The Aussie queen

Vallance residence

Casey and Rebekah
Vallance (CRV) were then introduced. They spoke about their subject,
their Paddington house, with a broad reference to Finnish
architecture and their studies of Aalto's work that had been
undertaken as a part of a thesis. They said that they had been
inspired by Aalto's work in Finland – 'been moved.' The house was
shown and its history explained. An old ruin of a residence on a
tiny, long, narrow block of land covered with easements had been
purchased and resurrected, almost literally. It was explained that
the couple were evangelical Christians who saw a link between their
work and their beliefs. Just how Aalto's work fitted into this was
not explained other than they had experienced some nice feelings in
its presence. Images of the CRV residence showed a stick-and-screen,
timber-and-steel framework that filtered light beautifully. It seemed
a very attractive place that worked on various levels. The problem
was that here we had the architects talking about their own work in
glowing terms, using words that might have been better put together
by an objective reviewer. One kept expecting a little more detailed
information beyond flowery, romantic words and pretty, poetic images
that were being interpreted as a Christian's responsibility to 'our
maker.' It was a presentation that grasped at certain indulgent
assumptions, being perhaps a little insensitive by ignoring the
possible presence of sceptics in the audience.

The theological library nook

Aalto's 1937 Finnish Pavilion

1937 Finnish Pavilion plan

1937 Finnish Pavilion section

Brit Andressen eased
matters back into an academic rigour with her talk on two pavilions:
Aalto's Finnish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris World Fair: see -
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Finnish_Pavilion_Paris.html
and Sverre Fehn's Nordic Pavilion at the 1962 Venice Bienniale –
see:
http://www.architecturenorway.no/questions/identity/neveu-on-fehn/
She began by saying that her own work always related to the
landscape, and when in more urban circumstances, to the sky. The site
for the Aalto 1937 pavilion adjacent to the Trocadero in Paris was
illustrated. It was full of trees. Aalto's sketches and the final
site development were explained broadly. BA showed how the building
had been designed around the trees as a walk. She said that it had
been called 'the forest is walking,' a phrase that relates to
Macbeth. Details of the cladding and other drawings of the scheme
were shown. The Sverre Fehn Venice pavilion was located in the Venice
Biennale park that was again covered with trees. The siting and
intentions of the design were explained along with some very feint
original drawings that the glare made more illegible. Photographs
helped to clarify matters. It was a beautiful scheme that again had
been detailed around the trees. A layered grid of deep, thin
laminated timber beams had been used to span a large open area made
by an L-shaped retaining wall. This space allowed shortcuts for
pedestrians through the display area that fully opened up with
sliding glazed, timber-framed doors. It was an elegant scheme.

Sverre Fehn's 1962 Nordic Pavilion

Rick Lepalstrier
(RL) noted how the lovely metaphor of the 'trees walking' really
seemed to relate to this Venice scheme, even though it was the name
Aalto had given to his Paris pavilion proposal. RL referred to the
image that showed the mature tree trunks arrayed below one of the
massive beams: “You can really see them walking.” After
checking the Macbeth reference,# it was not clear why Aalto might
have chosen the 'trees walking' reference, as it is used by
Shakespeare in the sense that this might happen only if 'the sun
falls out of the sky': c.f. 'if the forest walks up the hill to the
castle,' which is very unlikely to happen. It was a literary prophecy of demise. Is this what Aalto meant in the Finnish Pavilion?

Aalto's 1937 Finnish Pavilion entry

Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) said of
Aalto's Finnish Pavilion in New York, 1939, that it was the
work of a genius: it was like walking though a forest. Perhaps
'forest walking' needs to be understood in its ordinary sense of
moving, walking through a forest? Could it have been an inversion in
the translation from Finnish into English? This experiential notion of walking seems to have
more meaning than a clever, obscure academic reference, as Aalto had
indeed designed the pavilion in Paris as a walk through the forest of
trees that he left untouched. Indeed, he even supplemented the notion
of forest with a miniature set of trees in a small courtyard. There seemed to be nothing sinister in his intent.++

Sadly the tree has been removed, but the gesture remains

Nordic design in the Italian sun

BA finished by
speaking about her last visit to Venice. A Norwegian artist had seemingly smashed
out the pavilion doors - was it only an allegory? - lying them around on top of one another
chaotically with the glass broken, as part of the theme of sounds
from crashing glass that was being promoted as 'art.' Ironically, it was titled Rapture! The frames had been painted white. All that was said about this 'art' was
that it looked strange, surreal. Did she approve of this apparent, perhaps suggestive vandalism as
'art' or not? There was no comment, no judgement at all. One wondered
why.

Rapture by Camille Norment, NorwayMight it be better called 'Rupture'?

The original pavilion doors still seem to be intact in spite of BA's expressed concerns

Later in the
symposium, during one discussion that asked if other places in
Australia had such an interest in Nordic work as Brisbane did, it was
commented that BA was responsible for promoting Aalto to her students
in Brisbane. One wondered; why not others too, e.g. Kahn, Scarpa, who
could be equally intimate? Why just concentrate on one?

Villa Mairea

The Japanese welcome: 'Step up,'

The day was proving
to be as difficult as one had expected, given the glare and
uncomfortable chairs. Why do architects insist on designing their own
chairs when comfortable ones are available commercially? The break
was welcome. After a stroll and a stretch, Magi Sarvimaki (MS) spoke
to her subject: “Japonisme in Finland and Australia.” She chose
Aalto's Villa Mairea and Richard Leplastrier's own house. Things
seemed to be getting a little nepotistic. Among frequent happy
giggles, aspects of each residence were selected to draw parallels
with Japanese references. It seemed to be stretching the symposium's
theme to the limit. Bruno Taut's book on the Japanese house had been
in Aalto's library. MS noted that Aalto had been close to the
Japanese ambassador in Finland, who had given him gifts including
books on Japanese architecture and the tea ceremony, and a yakata
that Aalto had worn in the studio while designing the Villa Mairea.
The parallels were interesting and convincing. Her knowledge of
things Japanese was useful for her to bring to the reading and
understanding of Aalto's work. The surprise was the roof space of
Villa Mairea that looked just like a Japanese rock garden; and the
garden work area that had storage shelving arranged just like those
in a tokonoma.

Villa Mairea

Leplastrier residence

The 'Japanese' verandah

RL's house was
likened to a boat, (hopefully it was more than the 'portholes'), with
Japanese connections in the section, the verandahs and the pottery on
the shelves. MS noted that her mother had been a potter. This talk
brought in a strange diversion to the Nordic theme of the day by
linking things Nordic and Australian to matters Japanese. The
diversion added a little complication to the subject, but also some
interest. It seemed possible that the Japanese parallel might take
the day over. The strange thing was that while there was mention of
Aalto using American oregon pine poles to reflect the forest form in
his Villa Mairea - or was it Japanese bamboo? - there was no mention
that the building we were in has tried to do the very same thing in a
very self-conscious way, adding a maze of timber verticals externally
apparently to reference what seems to be just as many pine trees in a
nearby small copse – hardly a forest! Are folk afraid of talking
about existing local circumstances, either good or bad? Do we only
want to discuss and see value in other places abroad, elsewhere,
anywhere but Australia? - see: http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/crab-architecture-at-bond-university_4645.html

Villa Mairea stair

Jack House, Wahroonga, New South Wales

The day moved on
with Annalisa Capurro (AC) stepping up to enthuse boldly on Russell
Jack’s 1957 Sulman Award winning house in Sydney. The house was
placed on the Sate Heritage Register in 2013. It was a thorough and
detailed introduction that explained and showed a lovely house in a
beautiful setting, all sensitively arranged and detailed. It was
classic 50's in every way. Memories of the magazines of the day with
prim ladies in frilly aprons posing elegantly in new Laminex kitchens
with curved shelving, images all printed on a coarsely textured,
cream matt paper, came to mind. The Jack house was full of furniture
and fittings that had been originally purchased in Finland by Jack
prior to building this house. The surprise was that AC had purchased
the house. One wondered why the images were not as crisp as they
might be. Was this screen getting more glary or had a retro digital
camera setting been adapted to 50's style? Jennifer Taylor had
written about the house as being a turning point in Australian
architecture. Indeed, one could see how this might be. What was
unclear was how one was supposed to understand it now – only as a
museum piece? It looked like it. The interiors had the same
self-conscious feel of a sparse Seidler space, only with more pieces
and parts with greater variation in style, materials and colour. There was a certain vacancy here. Little was said about actually living in it; much was said about the
materials, structure and details, and the linking of the inside and
outside. What has time, change to do here other than to stand still?
The chat after the presentation proved useful: the house had a flat
roof, a fact never revealed in the images. That Jack had made his
letterbox in the form of a model of his house was presented as a
charming quirky characteristic. Apparently he did this
letterbox-matching for all of his houses. Today this would be seen as
terrible, tasteless kitsch. It is something Boyd might have mocked in
his The Australian Ugliness
along
with letterboxes on welded chains.
Times and perceptions do change.

'Influenced by the
organic work of Frank Lloyd Wright and the craftsmanship of
traditional Japanese architecture'

Already one was
sensing something strange was happening here. Was this symposium
about history or was it about architecture – philosophy perhaps?
Were we looking at a past or a present, in the sense of some subtle
quality that persists and might still be relevant? If this was a
'present,' how did it relate to a 'past'? Why was the past so much
alive in this present? The questions kept dancing around unresolved.
How was one supposed to address this material that was review,
personal reflection, facts and historical yarns? Was the proposition
that the Nordic influence had been important, or was it that it was
relevant now? Could it be both? One had to remember that Aalto died
on 11 May 1976, nearly forty years ago. Utzon died 29 November 2008,
some seven years ago. Was there something nostalgic here?

Aalto Summer House, Muuratsalo, Finland

Luckily the lunch
break came after a short question time. One needed a coffee to get
rid of the headache. Looking into the glare was proving to be very
testing as the sun grew brighter with its move into the west. A
sandwich and a coffee in a near empty student canteen was all that
was needed. Why might the canteen have so few folk in it at
lunchtime? What were the student numbers at Bond University?
Apparently the school of architecture has 75 students, with the aim of
eventually reaching an enrolment of 150.

Aalto University, Otakaari, Finland

Aalto posing

Character sketch of Aalto

The afternoon
session started late. Some must have had a more luxurious lunch than
we did as they were seen strolling along to the school chatting some
twenty minutes after the time they had nominated for the restart.
Eventually Esa Laaksonen (EL) moved to the lectern to talk about
“Alvar Aalto’s way – The ultraviolet spectre of architecture.”
He said that he didn't know enough about Australian architecture to
include it in his talk as he had been requested, but he did finally
mention a few names and show a couple of 'Aalto-esque' images from an
earlier trip. His sounded a good title, but the subject was a
concern. He wanted to show us the 'real' Aalto beyond the
presentable, suave PR image of him. A sketch showing a haggard Aalto
drawn by a colleague was displayed to suggest the difference. It
seemed that what EL was trying to do in his research was to attempt
to rationalise the mystery in Aalto's work. He was interested in the
philosophy of the flesh and biological implications for designers. He
mentioned texts for future reading. How this related to the 'real'
Aalto was unclear.

Aalto vase

Aalto stool

EL explained how the
field that one could see and hear was very much a tiny part of what
Aalto had called his 'ultraviolet' zone – the unseen, unheard part
of experience. Lists of what this zone might include were presented.
It all seemed a serious mistake, that the study was doomed to fail,
in the sense that it will kill the very thing that was loved. That
birds of prey have ultraviolet vision seemed a sundry piece of
analysis. Of course we see and sense differently to both birds, and
insects too. This talk was a little disappointing, as EL appeared to
be the keynote speaker, being Director of the Alvar Aalto Academy in Helsinki who was
currently teaching in China. Still, the chat between AC and EL after
the formal presentation proved far more entertaining and informative.
Maybe the whole event should have been a more casual reminiscence of
experiences by those who knew both Aalto and Utzon? The subject of
Aalto is complex and involves many sensitivities. These have to be
handled very carefully if they are to be shared and sensed by others
without any aberrations.

Aalto relaxing

Silvia Micheli's
(SM) subject was “Aalto beyond Finland.” It was she who had
initiated the whole idea for the day. She has spent many years
researching Aalto in various countries, so one hoped for a good
presentation. Sadly SM seemed to have taken on the task of merely
cataloguing Aalto's life and works in every detail, under numerous
headings. She collected facts. One did not expect this, but the
research did reveal some interesting statistics that highlighted the
scope and variety of Aalto's life, work and travel. Travel was
interesting. He loved travel. Other sources record stories that tell
how Finnish Airways used to hold a flight up for him. Aalto enjoyed
this adulation so much that he would tell his driver to go around the
airport block if he was ever early. This was said to be a rare event,
that is, being early. SM showed some intriguing images of Aalto at
work and at play. These are always of interest, to see the man as he
was. SM said that she planned to begin cataloguing Aalto's drawings
in the near future.

Aalto exercising on beach at Ronch, Italy

Alvar Aalto's home in Munkkiniemi, Helsinki

Aalto chair

The day was moving
on. The light was changing, so the glare was easing. Richard Johnson
(RJ) told how he did not think that he had any Nordic links to talk
about, so he chose “Personal reflections” as his subject. He
spoke of the early 50s, how his family moved into a new house in
North Sydney, leaving all the old things behind. His life included
Marimekko, Arabiaware and Parker furniture, the look-alike
Danish-styled commercial furniture. As an aside, in Brisbane, Nordic
fabrics, dinnerware, cookware and cutlery had been available at Joy
de Gruchy's The Craftsman Market at Toowong. Campbell Scott of
Hayes and Scott Architects used to design his own Danish-styled
furniture pieces and have them fabricated locally. There was
certainly something Nordic in the air. RJ spoke of Ken Woolley's work
for the Pettit and Sevitt homes, noting how these changed project
housing in Sydney. Woolley had suggested the developers visit Finland
to see furniture and fittings that they could use for their homes.

Jørn Utzon's 1953 Kingo Housing, Helsingør, Denmark

Utzon's floor plan showing boat building shelter

Ise Shrine, Japan - it is rebuilt every twenty years

RJ told of his
travels after his studies, how he saw Utzon's housing, (no one
mentioned the Radburn Planning Scheme, just Utzon's brilliance and
sensitivity), and Jensen Klint's church during his Finnish trip. He
also travelled to Japan. Images of the Ise Shrine site were shown. RJ
has seen this rebuilt three times in his life. He is hoping for a
fourth. RJ spoke in detail of his experiences working with Utzon for
ten years on his Opera House work, then showed some of his own
projects, including his exhibition design: see -
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/on-exhibitionism-art-of-display.html
for letter on The Arts of Islam exhibition designed by RJ. Yet
again, once the formal presentation had been finished, the chat
between the two Richards, RJ & RL who both had known and worked
with Utzon, gave interesting insights into the man. RJ summarised his
talk by saying that he had been less inspired by Nordic architecture
than Japanese architecture; and that he now saw himself as a
classicist, preferring Asplund, Sarrinen, and other older Helsinki
works. He said that he started his projects by organising space and
spoke of Kahn on light. Kahn had said that one must know what the
light has to be in order to envisage space, as the two are
intertwined as one.

Jensen Klint church at Bispebjerg, Copenhagen

Interior of the Klint brick church

Leplastrier's Palm Garden House sectional drawing

Richard Leplastrier
(RL) then took over to speak about the quote, “Bound is boatless
man”, an old Danish saying. (I guess I am bound!) He started by
saying that he had known the Danes since he was eight, through
sailing. They were the best sailors. Yet again he had problems with
speedy images – see:
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/richard-leplastrier-ephemeral.html
The problem was resolved. He spoke of his heroes Jensen Klint,
Utzon's father, and Jørn
Utzon. It is strange that he did not mention Dr. Manfred Curry - see link above. He saw boats as the core of everything architectural. He
explained how 'nave' was related to 'naval,' and 'hull' was related
to 'hall' thus arguing, like AC, for the idea of the inverted boat
used as a roof as the model for all architecture.^ RL said that Christ could have preached under an upturned boat. This needs to be
challenged: see -
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/skaw-boat-house.html
Only smaller boats were used in this way, and generally for stores and byres. In
Shetland, the largest boat that I have seen used as a roof is a
sixareen. The reconstructed Viking house is insulated under sods of turf on a
pitched roof: see - http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/skaw-boat-house.html

Roman galley

While 'nave' does indeed have its origins in Medieval
Latin navis - ship, 'nave' is the term used in the Roman
basilica, possibly, the dictionary explains, because it looked like a large boat. Just what this means is unclear, as it does not particularly seem to look like a
boat should. Could it be a metaphor, a symbol? - see:
http://www.jesuswalk.com/christian-symbols/ship.htm
The ship was a symbol of the church. Is this why every Danish
cathedral has a ship in it, as RL noted? The point is that this
is not a specific Nordic reference or one that relates physically to ships. We need to know more about symbolism. The nave was the name for the
central space even when, in the original basilica form, it had a gable roof propped off horizontal beams, not a broad vault, framing or arches that might make it look like the
shape and structure of an inverted ship. Maybe the symbolism prompted the reading of the basilica roof and its basic framing as being somewhat, perhaps diagrammatically, 'boat-like' in appearance; to 'see it as' a boat? - see: http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/seeing-what-we-believe-idyllic-visions.htmlCould it be that
this symbolic reference is why the cathedral ceilings came to be
framed and vaulted in a way that made them look more akin to a boat,
the symbol of the church?

Typical basilica plan

Typical basilica section

As for 'hull' and
'hall,' these have no relationship at all. 'Hull,' rather nicely,
comes from Middle English 'husk,' Old English 'hulu,' and relates to
'hold,' while 'hall' comes from the Middle English 'halle,' large
residence, Old English 'heall' – see:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
Is this a matter of RL not letting the facts get in the way of a good
story? Architects need to have greater rigour than this. More stories
eulogising Utzon were told. Could one believe these? Everything about
the man is, it seems, brilliant. He was a genius; a hunter – “He
knew everything that was happening, everything! Everywhere!”' One
wonders with some apprehension, did he know that he was to be sacked?

RL did comment on
the fact that documentation for the refurbishment of the Opera House
was currently being put out for tender for the cheapest quote. He
expressed astonishment and alarm at this process, adding that one
always needs to take a project right through from the beginning to
completion if one ever expects to get quality work. Even site
supervision is critical. (Hear, hear!) What is happening in
Australia? Is this a sign of the times? How can this be changed?

Leplastrier rowing his much-loved boat

The final video
showed RL in his boat explaining its timbers and construction to his
Finnish colleagues. AC quipped that it was an appropriate ending for
the day's presentations, with Rick sailing off into the sunset!
Indeed, the sun had set.

Leplastrier sailing

Laplastrier was critical of Aalto's boat design

While one can
respect figures like Utzon and Aalto, et.al., even admire them, one
also knows that they had public faces, as EL showed; that stories
about them gain their own momentum and are selective. We like to
remember the best, even if they have been embellished by time and
laurels. One only has to look back on the offices one has worked in
to know the difference between the reports and the experience. There
can be great gaps. Sometimes reputations are just too blindly
hagiographical.^^

Jørn Utzon

Alvar Aalto

So the day drew to a
close as the evening grew darker. Sadly time had run out and other
things needed attention, so the final chat session had to be left for
others to attend. Given the struggle with some of these discussion/question
times during the day, maybe not much was missed, apart from the
cheese and wine! Still the day proved to be interesting, but what did
it achieve?

The presentations
can be summarised as:

Adrian Carter
* illustrated Nordic connections with Australia

Casey and Rebekah
Vallance spoke about their house and their beliefs

Brit
Andresen* analysed two Nordic pavilions with no Australian content

Magi
Sarvimaki* spoke about Japanese influences on Nordic &
Australian architecture

Annalisa
Capurro spoke about her Jack house

Esa
Laaksonen* spoke about demystifying Aalto

Silvia
Micheli spoke about cataloguing Aalto's life and work

Richard
Johnson spoke about his personal journey

Richard
Leplastrier spoke about his heroes, and times with Utzon

Aalto stool

Generally the day
involved recollections, historic reviews, personal experiences and
catalogues. Is this being over-romantic with Aalto's legacy and
Utzon's reputation? One wonders what might happen if some architects
went this deeply and enthusiastically, with such singular commitment,
into, say, FLW's work. Indeed they have – Eddie Oribin's work in
Cairns, e.g., and Conrad & Gargett's church at Hamilton: both
were inspired by Wright's architecture. There is always some disquiet
about FLW copies. Is Aalto's work the new 'nuts & berries' style?
Is there something less idiosyncratic in Aalto's work, less
personally referenced, more abstract in its claim, more accessible by
others? Is it 'humanity'? Is it a little more like, say, Japanese
architecture: more deliberately structured in concept; able to be adapted rather than copied? Is there
something universally spiritual here?

Aalto's Sänyätsalo Town Hall

Had the day been
been rigged? Was there some degree of self-interest involved beyond
academic CVs? Those from the Nordic region are shown listed above
with an asterisk: fifty percent of the presenters were of Nordic
origin. Was this a yearning for home? All other speakers had ties with the Nordic region either through
contacts, commitment, work or research, or all four. Only RJ was
equivocal about his Nordic links. It hardly seemed to be a fair
debate. Why are we looking backwards in time to another completely
different region of the world? Do we believe in Santa Claus? Is this
the latent urge that spirits us towards loving this cold, remote,
northern place? Aalto died 1976. Why do we look back at him, his
efforts? Have we been seduced by his cunning charm? Have we recreated
our own perfect vision of his charisma? Have we idealised him; and
Utzon too? Have we created our own mythic stories and sources?

Australian landscape

Why do we not look
at the Australian condition, feel for it, and respond to it? Nordic
light and time is very different to ours. The northern region has
dark, freezing winters with very heavy snow, and long daylight
summers with very low-angled, soft light. The region has marked
seasonal changes. They are stark. It has different histories,
different beginnings, different ambitions. The fact that some Nordic
architects have come to Australia does not create a necessary
connection between these places. Why copy the architecture that has
grown out of this different culture, or even its approach? It might
feel good in Finland, as a personal discovery or revelation, but why
reproduce this strategy here? It is a difficult thing to consider.
Perhaps it is a specialised architectural matter – that we are
seeking out essences that can be embodied in an Australian
expression: but do such things exist? Is anyone prepared to argue
this? If so, what are the full implications for architects and
architecture beyond Aalto?

Hardly a Murcutt!

Typical new 'Shetland' Norwegian kit house (and above)

Housing, Lerwick, Shetland

I am familiar with
islands close to the Nordic region, the Shetland Islands: these are
my second homeland. This remote place is closer to Bergen than it is
to London, yet it is considered a part of Scotland. It once was part
of Denmark, but was given away as a dowry, like a string of trinkets.
Shetland has strong Nordic links both in culture, language and
history. The Vikings lived there with the Picts, and visited
frequently as they travelled west to the Faroes, Iceland, Greenland
and America. The islands have strong links to Norway. The Shetland
boat has its origins in Norway. Even today, prefab Norweigian houses
are delivered to Shetland in kit form. In the early 1900s they were
sent to Iceland. The village of Seyðisfjörður still has some 90 imported
Norwegian kit buildings: see -
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/norwegian-wood-and-corrugated-iron.html

Would I want to
reproduce any of the vernacular Shetland buildings in Australia? -
see:
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/shetland-vernacular-buildings.html
Hardly.## These shelters are uniquely linked to place, both in
materials, form and purpose; but are we really talking about
vernacular buildings? Aalto's work has references to the work of
other cultures, making it more an intellectual study than a native
building style or form. Is this what is being sensed, an intellectual
game that we can all play? Is architecture a game? Does this strategy
make one look and feel good, significant, important? Maybe it carries
the same problem as a Gehry or Hadid approach – see:
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/frank-o-gehry-art-of-war.html
and
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/zahas-architectural-car-design-strategy.html
- under a different, more romantic cloak, a more acceptable,
'sensitive,' dare one say 'loving' approach, itself wrapped in the
mythic stories of the heroes? Have we all been seduced by this
illusion of hope for me, that I might be like them; that I can do an
'Aalto' in Australia to display my intellectual sensitivity? Is this
an ego trip equal to any other? We need to be careful for what we
wish.

Australian landscape complete with power line above

Australian aboriginal rock art**

If we are to be true
to ourselves, our place, our materials, our culture, then maybe we
need to look closely at our own backyard, our own lives, rather than
drooling over far away outcomes that always look brighter, better,
especially in Australia that glorifies the stranger with the accent
from distant countries. Why not study Hunt for brickwork? Why not
investigate the indigenous understanding of place and land for
context? - see Bill Neidjie Australia's Kakadu Man and Story
about Feeling. There are numerous matters that could be listed
here. Why do we continually want to be something else, from
elsewhere? Is it for some latent prestige; to be the cliche 'world
class'?

We need to be
ourselves, in our own country, content with our own culture,
language, light, time; with our own place being encompassed as an
understanding in form and detail, in an everyday,
ordinary/extraordinary manner, not in some grand display of
intellectual intent that is revealed even in Jack's work. Doing
special things only divides, separates, isolates. Little wonder that
architects are growing apart from the masses. Only RJ mentioned the
project house. What has happened to the ordinary house today? This
housing is the real Australia – have a look at it in new suburbia.
Trying to pretend that it does not exist has its own problems of
elitism that keep architects as special, unique. Is this why no one
will listen to architects on the proposed new Brisbane casino? - see:
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/brisbanes-new-casino-proposal-approved.html
We are merely mocked as fools! Is harking after things Finnish,
Nordic, cementing this isolation? We need to be wary. If we want to
debate/discuss/explore matters, then these issues need to be open to
all possibilities, not merely to what can be seen as the continuing
hagiography of a group of acolytes. If we are unable to see a potential problem with recreating Finnish/Nordic design in Australia,
might we better understand the circumstance and its issues if we see the situation as designing a 'Murcutt' house in the Shetland Islands?## In
Shetland, the weather can look clear, sunny and warm, just like an
Australian summer's day from the cosy inside of the cottage, but step
outside and there is the possibility that you could be blown away by a freezing gale.
Everything that moves has already gone with the wind! Shetland hills
are bare.

Shetland landscape - Kahn's interplay of light and space, defined here by land, water and sky

Australian aboriginal rock art

This undoubting, unqualified adulation is a
real concern, Nordic or not. We need to become Australian,
confidently Australian, not in any 'Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie' mad,
parochial manner, but in the full richness of place and identity
expressed in form: architecture. In art, we need to challenge, to question the
egocentric confusion of the 'smashed' Venice pavilion approach, instead of trying to argue thoughtlessly that it is an
intellectual delight - pure 'rapture.' Life is too short to be pompously foolish or
blindly agreeable, even if both approaches can be cleverly, shrewdly rationalised. Perhaps we make things too easy, too indulgent for ourselves with our feel-good loving involvement with astonishingly beautiful and interesting things?

This is not Shetland: too many trees!

NOTES:

#

The Prophecy of Birnam Wood

In response to
Macbeth's request, the witches present Macbeth with several
apparitions (ghostly figures) that each give Macbeth a misleading
'prophecy.' One of the apparitions, a child wearing a crown and
holding a tree, delivers the following lines:

'Be lion-mettled,
proud, and take no care

Who chafes, who
frets, or where conspirers are.

Macbeth shall never
vanquish'd be until

Great Birnam Wood to
high Dunsinane Hill

Shall come against
him.' (Act IV, Scene 1, lines 98-102)

Although the
apparition tells Macbeth to 'take no care' of any threats, these
lines foreshadow Macbeth's defeat. Foreshadowing is a literary device
that gives the reader a hint (sometimes a very subtle one) of what
will happen later in the story. Because it is highly unlikely that a
forest (Birnam Wood) will walk up the hill to his castle (Dunsinane
Hill), Macbeth expresses great relief:

'That will never be.

Who can impress the
forest, bid the tree

Unfix his
earth-bound root? Sweet bodements! good!

Rebellion's head,
rise never till the wood

Of Birnam rise, and
our high-plac'd Macbeth

Shall live the lease
of nature, pay his breath

To time and mortal
custom.' (Act IV, Scene 1, lines 103-109)

Macbeth's excessive
pride, or hubris, leads him to believe that no enemy can harm him.
Unfortunately, for Macbeth, this sense of security is false. Not long
after this moment, the prophecy of Birnam Wood comes true.

The great irony is
that some Shetland architects aspire to create Glen Murcutt houses in
the Shetland Islands! They drool over the images in the publications,
the open, sunny spaces; the light structures and thin materials.
Shetland buildings need to provide heavy, solid and firm, enclosed
shelter – such are the demands of the climate and terrain. Little
wonder that some hold the hope to be free of these burdens of
necessity and see a 'Murcutt' as a wistful dream: if only!

Australian landscape

+

Schedule for the
day:

09:30 – 10:00
Registration & Coffee

10:00 – 10:05
Welcome

10:05 – 10:30
“Nordic and Australian Connections” Adrian Carter

10:30 – 11:00
“Nordic influences on a house in Paddington” Casey and Rebekah
Vallance

^Replica Viking longship on Unst, Shetland. It is a large vessel to turn over to make a roof.

**Might Adrian Carter have matched the Nordic petroglyph with Australian aboriginal art too?

This landscape is not Nordic!

P.S.

Thursday, 15th October 2015Do we yearn too much
for answers when we consider this Nordic world? We forget that an
answer is truly no answer. The poet Constantine Cavafy said it best
in his poem, Ithaca: arrive 'not expecting that Ithaca will
offer you riches./ Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.' - see:
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/boro-art-of-mending.html

The relation between
music and architecture has been often commented upon. If we really
need to understand the difference between the Nordic countries and
Australia, we should consider the difference between the symphonies
of Edvard Grieg and Peter Sculthorpe.

Friday, 16 October
2015

++

A week has passed by
already since the day of the symposium. Thoughts still flicker into
form from time to time as possibilities arising out of lingering
questions. Why would Aalto have referenced Macbeth? Might there have
been a serious message in his work? It was 1937. Could it have been
that he was sensing the tensions building up and warning the world
of/predicting the coming war? The place to make such a stinging
statement so subtly was appropriate: on the stage at the Paris World
Fair. One needs to know much more about context here, for the walk
through the forest is the most obvious reference in the title. Does
this romantic interpretation seek to conceal the intent with a twin
meaning identifying both an innocence and a foreboding?

^^

On Aalto and Utzon:
What might they mean to us in Australia, for they are important and
cannot be dismissed simply because they are from another culture and
a different heritage, or because they get 'promoted' by some? One
could suggest that they taught us different ways of seeing; how to
'see . . . as.' The challenge is what one might do with these
revelations/understandings. The weakest, most limited outcome is to
copy, to replicate the Aalto/Utzon approach. One needs to try to
adapt, to incorporate this particular way of seeing the world and
one's work beyond the replication of concept, forms and ideas, in the
experience of Australia and its unique richness and diversity, if this
legacy is to maintain its relevance and true meaning.

LIVING IN IMPERMANENCE

Maybe it is a good thing for us to keep a few dreams of a house that we shall live in later, always later, so much later, in fact, that we shall not have time to achieve it. For a house that was final, one that stood in symmetrical relation to the house we were born in, would lead to thoughts – serious, sad thoughts – and not to dreams. It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.

Gaston Bachelard The Poetics of Space

see: THE NECESSITY OF THE INCOMPLETE in the sidebar

ON MAKESHIFTS & DISCOMFORTS

Experienced architects will recognize . . . . . a trait of human nature which leads certain clients who are discerning in requiring the nicest efficiency in the arrangements made for them, to rejoice in makeshifts and discomforts of their own devising.

ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE

. . . no one can relieve (the architect) from the need to rely on his own discretion, for that discretion is linked to a responsibility which belongs to no one but (the architect). It is the exercise of discretion hampered by considerations of cost, of risk, of exact justice, of conflicting interests, of uncertainty as to facts, of misunderstandings and of diverse individualities and dishonest or incapable agents, which is the chief care and preoccupation of architectural practice. To design a building, to draw and specify every part of it, and to direct its construction and see it completed with no other anxieties and dilemmas than belong to the exercise of those duties, is unknown.

About Me

This blog site is a collaborative initiative. For years there has been a discussion with friends and colleagues about the lack of critical debate and general review on matters concerning our environment, its making, maintenance and our understanding of it. Once our newsletters promoted these issues, but events have taken their toll as times and technologies have changed. So it has been decided to grasp the new tools and begin again afresh – doing only more of the same with a renewed vigour.

SPAN

17 August 2012

This blog began as a co-operative concept. While the idea and the stimulus was generated through discussion, the blog has turned out to be an individual enterprise. SPAN stands for ‘Spence and’ in the context of others. As a word, it fitted in nicely with the idea of voussoirs - parts and pieces, complete with keystones, that could ‘span’ the gaps in understanding and communication. The word SPAN also allowed for a shared input into a blog.

Spence Jamieson is an architect and the author of these articles. The blogs show the scope of his interests.

E-MAIL

Followers

voussoirs

THE IDEA

chapters and verses as architectural commentary:

the wedge to isolate, array and shape ideas; the keystone to highlight core, supporting issues.voussoirsis a concept to start an architectural discussion to span the large gap in the debate on things architectural; a bridging of the void in architectural issues by exploring considered bits and pieces. The state of the profession today is highlighted by silence and self. It is introvert and protective. Educational centres remain isolated within their own constructs, being run primarily as businesses. They put very little back into the community. They indulge themselves in their own interests and exclude contrary and different ideas and ideals. They constantly avoid any challenge on concepts or strategies that might change the plotted course. Rarely does comment ever come from this academic world into the public or any arena. Very few publications help direct the public interest. Rarely do newspapers grasp the issues and explore them. One aspect may be given space in the popular press, but architectural debates and concerns are rarely given attention. The professional institutes are doing much the same as the educational institutions. Private practice is doing likewise, offering, if anything, only its own pushy propaganda to the public. Yet there is a discussion and debate in these silences that needs a larger and more open platform. Discussion is alive and well amongst a few in at least one curry house, but the debate needs to be a broadened.voussoirsis the place for this discussion. It is a site for ideas, comment, articles, and critiques on things architectural and associated issues. It is here that matters can be aired and ideas discussed and debated without fear of the neglect and disdain that institutions and private groups and publishers give to open speaking and differing ideas.

There can be no true understanding of any idea if discussion and debate are curtailed in favour of a preferred position.

The images used to illustrate these blogs that have not been taken by the author have been sourced from Google Images and are used under the ‘Fair Use’ rule.

THE NECESSITY OF THE INCOMPLETE

The early 50's and 60's is a period that is gaining interest in architectural ideas. Perhaps this is why Princeton chose to republish The Tao of Architecture. It is a beautiful little book that discusses the implications of traditional wisdom in architecture. Given the astonishing lack of direction in current architectural theory, the publication is very timely.

Laotzu's idea of formation is heavily concerned with emptiness or non-existence. To him who regards nothing as persistent, what is essentially important in things is the possibility of becoming something, not the opportunity of remaining as something confronting deterioration. Consequently, meaningful incompletion is taken as the most desirable state of tangible being.

p.22

. . . the full meaning of existence is beyond the power of any manifestation. What appears tangible, architectural or natural, is only a means to suggest that which is lacking in appearance and existing in man's intangible understanding and aesthetic feeling.

HOW POETRY COMES TO ME

It comes blundering over the

Boulders at night, it stays

Frightened outside the

Range of my campfire

I go to meet it at the

Edge of the light

Gary Snyder

www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/snyder/onlinepoems.htm

THE GROWTH OF SIZE

Size does not necessarily count in architectural space. It is the growth of size which is vital.

THE REAL AND THE IMAGINARY

I prefer, by far, real islands to imaginary islands, just as I prefer prime documents to novelistic remakes. That's because the real is richer than the imagination. The real demands investigation and is an invitation to sensitive knowledge, whereas the imaginary is more often than not just a collection of stereotypes, a soup of clichés offering an infantile kind of satisfaction. Then, a relationship to the real and its resistance requires changes in thought, in ways of being, in ways of saying, it leads to a transformation of the self. Whereas imagination is nothing but compensation. There's even something horribly autistic about sitting in one spot and spinning out invention by the yard. How much more interesting an open and poetic process involving contemplation, study, movement, meditation and composition.

ULTIMATE THULE

VISION, CIVILIZATION & SPIRIT

The architect who combines in his being the powers of vision, of imagination, of intellect, of sympathy with human need and the power to interpret them in a language vernacular and time - - - is he who shall create poems in stone.

When you look on one of your contemporary 'good copies' of historical remains, ask yourself the question: Not what style, but what civilization is this building? And the absurdity, vulgarity, anachronism and solecism of the modern structure will be revealed to you in a most startling fashion.

It cannot for a moment be doubted that an art work to be alive, to awaken us to life, to inspire us sooner or later with its purpose, must indeed be animate with a soul, must have been breathed upon by the spirit and must breathe in turn that spirit.

Louis Sullivan

FROM DELPHI

KNOW THYSELF

and next to this:

NOTHING IN EXCESS

AN UNCHANGING PROFESSION

Blenheim Palace . . .Many of the builders went unpaid for years as the disputes dragged on, and most eventually got only a fraction of what they were owed. Building work ceased altogether for four years from 1712 to 1716, and many of the unpaid workers were understandably loath to return when work resumed. Vanburgh himself didn't get paid until 1725 – almost exactly twenty years after work started.

Bill Bryson At Home A Short History of Private Life Black Swan London 2016, p.213

MENDING WALL

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'. Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me~ Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Robert Frost

FLIGHTS OF FANCY

I must caution my young friends not to expect much novelty in these discourses, for novelty and flights of fancy, however amusing, cannot be very instructive.

Sir John Soane The Royal Academy Lectures edited by David Watkin Cambridge University Press 2000 p.29

CATHEDRALS and SYMBOLISM

Everything is the symbolical representation of an idea. p.28

The same artists, who had to follow a strict rule when treating the history of God, could use all of their imagination when treating the ornamental: whence the blossoming of the grotesque and the original. p.38

In those days religion, drama, and art had the same aim and sought to provoke the same thoughts. They did not pretend to amuse the people; they endeavoured to teach them. p.51

This way of thinking and reasoning takes sometimes a very subtle turn. p.53

THE COMPLIMENT & THE CRITIC 2

More on how to avoid insult

And if in the endeavour to discharge the duties of my situation, as pointed out by the laws of this Institution, I shall be occasionally compelled to refer to the works of living artists, I beg to assure them that, whatever observation I may consider necessary to make, they will arise out of absolute necessity, and not from any disposition or intention on my part merely to point out what I may think defects in their compositions. For no man can have a higher opinion of the talents and integrity of the architects of the present time than myself, nor be more anxious on all occasions to do justice to their merits and fair pretensions to fame.

Sir John Soane The Royal Academy Lectures edited by David Watkin Cambridge University Press 2000 p.29

ON DEMOLISHING BUILDINGS

Nothing appears to me much more wonderful, than the remorseless way in which the educated ignorance, even of the present day, will sweep away an ancient monument, if its preservation be not absolutely consistent with immediate convenience or economy. Putting aside all antiquarian considerations, and all artistical ones, I wish that people would only consider the steps, and the weight of the following very simple argument. You allow that it is wrong to waste time, that is, your own time; but then it must be still more wrong to waste other people’s; for you have some right to your own time, but none to their’s. Well, then, if it is thus wrong to waste the time of the living, it must be still more wrong to waste the time of the dead; for the living can redeem their time, the dead cannot. But you waste the best of the time of the dead when you destroy the works they have left you; for those works they gave the best of their time, intending them for immortality.

John Ruskin Lectures on Architecture George Routledge & Sons Limited, London p.109

THE COMPLIMENT & THE CRITIC 1

How to avoid insult

But how much of nature have you in your Greek buildings? I will show you, taking for an example the best you have lately built; and, in doing so, I trust that nothing that I say will be thought to have any personal purpose, and that the architect of the building in question will forgive me; for it is just because it is a good example of the style that I think it more fair to use it for an example. If the building were a bad one of the kind, it would not be a fair instance; and I hope, therefore, that in speaking of the institution on the mound, just in progress, I shall be understood as meaning rather a compliment to its architect than otherwise. It is not his fault that we force him to build in the Greek manner.

LIFE AND THOUGHT

The popular supposition that an industrial revolution, by means of a new technique such as cast-iron, changes architectural style is an inadequate thesis. By changing life and thought it also changes radically the whole function and aesthetic of architecture.Robert Furneaux Jordan, Victorian Architecture, Pelican, Harmondsworth, 1966, p.36.

ON EDUCATION

'. . those who are responsible for giving instruction in the theory of architecture should be practising architects. The warning is necessary because, strange though it may seem, English schools of architecture to-day tend to be run by men who either do not practise at all, or whose practices are for them a very subsidiary spare-time occupation. Often a teaching appointment is a means by which a clever student avoids the humiliation of entering an office as a junior assistant, thus depriving himself of the only opportunity he will ever have of learning something of the practical side of his profession from the bottom upwards. There can be no doubt whatever that the teaching of theory has suffered severely as a result of this habit: and this leads me to the conclusion that no man should be permitted to teach until he is recognized by his Faculty as a Master of Theory and Practice. In other words, he should be not only a practising architect but also, what is unfortunately a much rarer specimen, a good architect.'

ON STAINS

'The mouth kisses, the mouth spits; no one mistakes the saliva of the first for the second. Similarly, there is nothing necessarily impure about dirt. What must be determined are the conditions under which a surface marking is experienced as a stain.'

Mohsen Mostafavi and David Leatherbarrow, On Weathering . The Life of Buildings in Time, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p.109

'. . . . . it may lead us to the Grounds of Architecture and by what steps this Humour of Colonnades comes into practice . . . . .'Christopher Wren

ETHICS

Thus Pugin laid the foundation stones of that strange system which dominates the nineteenth-century art criticism and is immortalised in the Seven Lamps of Architecture: the value of a building depends on the moral worth of its creator; and a building has a moral value independent of, and more important than, its esthetic value. We must not consider this emphasis on morality peculiarly Victorian. Whenever esthetic standards are lost, ethical standards rush in to fill the vacuum; for the interest in esthetics dwindles and vanishes, but the interest in ethics is eternal.

Kenneth Clark The Gothic Revival - An Essay in the History of Taste, (1st edition Constable 1928); third edition John Murray 1962, reprinted 1974, p.149.

ALIENATION

Then, as now, alienation was said to have disappeared in a society of abundance, leisure, and consumption.Andy Merrifield, Henri Lefebvre A Critical Introduction, Routledge, New York, 2006, p.45.

EVERYDAY

Man must be everyday, or he will not be at all.

. . . .

What is the goal? It is the transformation of life in its smallest, most everyday detail.

Henri Lefebvre, Critique de la vie quotidienne, 1947.

FASHIONABLE FORM

They will only remain to later ages as monuments of the patience and pliability with which the people of the 19th century sacrificed their feelings to fashions, and their intellects to forms.

John Ruskin,Lectures on Architecture and Painting, Routledge, London, 1854: p.42

DRAWING WATER

MODERNITY

The everyday is covered by a surface: that of modernity. News stories and the turbulent affectations of art, fashion, and event veil without ever eradicating the everyday blahs. Images, the cinema and television divert the everyday by at times offering up to its own spectacle, or sometimes the spectacle of the distinctly noneveryday; violence, death, catastrophe, the lives of kings and stars – those who we are led to believe defy everydayness. Modernity and everydayness constitute a deep structure that a critical analysis can work to uncover.

Henri Lefebvre, The Everyday and Everydayness, in Stephen Harris and Deborah Berke, Architecture of the Everyday, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1997, p.37.

NAMING

The simplest act of substitution is to put the name of a maker in the place of his or her work, which amounts to a paraphrase in itself. . . . All paraphrase sets aside the original: To put the name in place of the painting is to remove it from immediate consciousness; to narrate the life of an individual is an act profoundly different from looking into a painting and one that cannot be conducted simultaneously with it. To substitute a temporal narrative, already present in a name, for the physical work of art is to give up those features of the thing that were transient and unrepeatable, bound to a moment that is irrevocably ended; the unique insistence is, for the moment at least, sacrificed on the altar of continuity.

Thomas Crow, The Intelligence of Art, The University of North Carolina Press, 1999, p.1.

what is a voussoir?

BEGINNINGS

There is always a beginning before the beginning. (p.63)

No one had ever been able to remember. That’s the problem with beginnings. (p.61)

The story of memory always begins with a room . . . interiors . . . remind us to remember. (p.15)

Edward Hollis, The Memory Palace A Book of Lost Interiors, Portobello Books, London, 2013

ON BRANDING

Branding is now the art of getting people to think what something might be rather than what it necessarily is. It's about the manipulation of the virtual reality in which so many live. The manipulators include anyone with an interest in what we might think of them - not just big companies with products to sell but political parties with votes to win, design gurus with clients to attract - anyone, in other words, acting in some kind of market. They all have an interest in controlling their appearance to make us believe it is the reality.

John Humphrys Beyond Words How Language Reveals The Way We Live Now Hodder and Stoughton. Great Britain 2006, p. 86-87

PRECONCEPTION

Leone Huntsman Sand in Our Souls The Beach in Australian History Melbourne University Press 2001, p.16:

Thus first impressions were filtered through existing preconceptions, starkly revealed in Sir Joseph Banks's description of the people seen from Captain James Cook's Endeavour when it first touched on the Australian continent in 1770:

In the morn we . . . [discerned] 5 people who appeared through our glasses to be enormously black: so far did the prejudices which we had built on Dampier's account influence us that we fancied we could see their Colour when we could scarce distinguish whether or not they were men.

Here Banks refers to William Dampier's unfavourable accounts of the West Australian aboriginal people in published accounts of his landings in 1688 and 1699, and reveals his own awareness of the extent to which perception was influenced by expectation.

JARGON

The world seems to find it necessary to use more and more jargon in general reporting and conversation. It is especially noticed in accounts and discussions on the arts. The ABC TV arts programme presented on 7 January 2017 at 6:15pm had more jargon than usual; indeed, had more unusual expressions than previously encountered, ones that had not been heard before:

"unpicking the tapestry" of one's life;

and

looking at "the fan deck of what you do."

These reminded one of other popular fashionable expressions:

“to unpack an issue,” meaning to analyse it in some detail;

and

“to segue,” meaning to shift to a new topic or activity.

This last term is a favourite of radio announcers. The Italian word is often misspelt as ‘segway’ because of the similar phonetic sounding that is more commonly understood as Segway, the brand of a human transporter.

The parallel is interesting, as the idea of being ‘transported’ is common to both words, but it seems to hold little interest to the radio voices that appear just too cleverly happy with the use of this different, interesting expression.